For the very first time the Australian Parliament is set to consider national dying with dignity laws after I tabled an exposure draft this week. Hours earlier I co-hosted an event in Parliament for three incredibly courageous and selfless people who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Peter Short, Cath Ringwood and Max Bromson chose to spend one day out of their last remaining months to come to Canberra and lobby for voluntary euthanasia to be legalised even though they know that reform won't happen fast enough for them.

Each of those courageous individuals and their families have decided that they will take matters into their own hands. They will say goodbye when they are ready but in making that decision they are stepping outside of the law.

Do we believe that someone with a terminal illness should be forced to suffer and ultimately die in a hospital despite wanting a dignified death at home when they are ready?

Anyone in Australia who assists someone to take their own lives – be it a family member or a medical practitioner – is guilty of a criminal offence. We need to ask ourselves as a country whether we believe that is right or just.

Do we believe that someone with a terminal illness should be forced to suffer and ultimately die in a hospital despite wanting a dignified death at home when they are ready? If that patient chooses the timing of their death why should they be forced to do so alone out of fear that their families could be charged and jailed if they are present?

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Before I was elected to the Senate I was a doctor so it is an issue that I have wrestled with. Medicine is about trying to heal people and save lives, so the idea of hastening someone’s death confronts those instincts. But I have come to the view that the overriding responsibility of a doctor is to relieve pain and suffering, and ultimately only a patient can decide when that pain and suffering is too great.

Deciding how you want to die is one of the most personal and important choices an individual could ever make. I can’t see any reason why the state should take away that freedom.

The evidence from other nations where dying with dignity is legislated demonstrates that people feel a great relief at gaining control over their end of life. This is also true for those Australians, like Peter, Max and Cath who risk prosecution to get access to the same choices. Many terminal patients may not exercise that choice but it is the notion of control itself that relieves suffering and brings peace of mind.

How can we look those people in the eyes and offer any reason why they should be denied that choice – why they should be denied that comfort. To whom do their lives belong, if not them?

I have now referred draft legislation to a Senate inquiry so that other politicians can hear these powerful stories and be reassured about the safeguards that would be put in place. This should not be a partisan issue and I am working to build a coalition of support across the political divide. Legislation like this can only succeed in the Parliament if it has support from members of all parties.

Death may be a taboo issue and it’s easy to put the topic out of mind but death comes to us all. The old cliche suggests that death and taxes are the two certainties of life. Perhaps we should spend a bit more time talking about the former and not let the political conversation be monopolised by the latter.

Richard Di Natale is the Australian Greens Senator for Victoria.

9 comments so far

Another emotion laden argument. People do not dispute the pain/ suffering side - they dispute whether the State should kill it's people. If the people mentioned (and others) want to end their life - suicide - for whatever reason, don't ask the State to help. Overseas experience shows no system is perfect, and that the terms broaden over time. In any legislative system, mistakes arise, only with euthanasia, it means someone who doesn't want to die is killed. Is the death of one innocent person to many? If that's acceptable, then lets reintroduce capital punishment as well - I mean the worth of a life is now determined by the State.

Commenter

Joel

Location

Canberra

Date and time

June 26, 2014, 3:49PM

Your argument is specious. It is not the State determining life or death as is the case in capital punishment - an abhorrent and unjustifiable act.

Euthanasia allows the dying person to take control of their own life and death, which the State currently prevents.

IIRC the polling on euthanasia is consistently in favour, I believe in the 60 - 70% mark. Why are both the major Parties so reluctant to address it?

The answer is that both Parties are dominated by religious minorities who hold on to a brutal and primitive philosophy and wish to impose that on others.

It takes the greens to provide leadership on the important issues. Well done, again, Richard and Parliamentary Greens.

Commenter

Riddley Walker

Location

Inland

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 10:10AM

Joel is either ignorant of or denies that many elderly Australians currently suicide by violent means (and alone) because the law forbids any assistance and access to drugs that provide a tranquil death. They do not seek 'state help' they simply want to state to permit willing doctors to provide them the means to die with dignity at a time they choose.

Under current law an individual intending suicide cannot even discuss the subject with their doctor without the doctor risking a charge of assisting suicide. Despite this, some brave doctors do intentionally hasten the death of very ill patients, sometimes at the patients request and many times without patient request. In these circumstances none of the many safeguards embodied in right to die legislation apply.

Joel can die any way he wishes, just leave the rest of us to make our own choices without interference.

Commenter

Marshall Perron

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 7:56PM

Thankyou Richard for bringing this "taboo" subject to the fore and attempting to enact legislative change. We seem to have been going down this path for eons and whilst there is overwhelming support from the community the political powers that be are refusing to accept that will.I expect that in the main it is due to the overbearing voices, from the minority views of the religious lobbyists. To which I find a massive contradiction, if life is indeed everlasting and it's damn good floating in heaven with your ancestors and other innocent beautiful souls, then why should we deny that experience to those unduly suffering a bit sooner? Many of us have watched loved ones suffer agonising pain and humiliation before the eventual outcome, an outcome that is unavoidable yet can be compassionately hastened. Either by ones own hand or by a complicit loved one (illegally).I wish you all the best with this legislation and the continuing debate, it's a debate we must repeat and repeat until there is justice for the suffering and terminally ill.It's the discussion we have to have in an adult and rational manner devoid of confected outrage.Peter Short, Cath Ringwood, Max Romsom you are nothing short of amazing, thankyou and may your time come when you choose. Not when an ideological politician or lobbyist decides.You have my 100% support and may your journey be successful and just.

Commenter

A country gal

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 12:38AM

This is a wonderful initiative by Richard Di Natale. The taboo on discussing ways of dying needs to be lifted so that the reluctance to think about our own deaths is broken down.

Commenter

AnneR

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 3:51PM

I often wonder when I see quoted statistics of the overwhelming majority supporting human euthanasia what question is put to the respondents. Most people would say they would not want to see themselves or a loved one suffer and would consider the basic concept of euthanasia as desirable. They might even use the oft quoted animal analogy of animals being put out of their misery. But as we all know animals are also euthanised when they are no longer valued or perhaps become to expensive and time consuming to keep healthy and comfortable. I think if the people surveyed were presented with imagining how a future with legislated euthanasia might look and asked some deeper questions about what would be a profound change to how society views the ill and ageing that their considered answer may be different. I might also point out that the blithe assumption that anyone who opposes euthanasia does so on religious grounds and therefore opposition can be dismissed is arrogant and lazy. I am not religious by any measure whatsoever. I am an atheist with experience of life threatening disease myself and of watching a loved one die of cancer and so on a personal l level I could value euthanasia, but as a member of a civil society I can only see that state legislated assisted suicide would be detrimental humanity.

Commenter

lyn

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 4:58PM

Richard did Natali might be a doctor: so am I.I do not disagree with him in all that he says: what I do not want is the prospect of Government (legal) interference in the dying and death of my patients. I have gently helped a number of people leave this world: I did not need a law to say whether I should or should not have done that.

Commenter

jm747

Location

Geelong

Date and time

June 27, 2014, 11:22PM

If terrorists can die INSTANTLY, why can't the rest of us?

Australian law makes Al Qaeda look compassionate.

Commenter

Ayame

Date and time

June 28, 2014, 10:36AM

I look forward to the day this situation changes. My memory of my beautiful mum has been blackened by the five weeks I spent with her in a hospice waiting for her to die. Her last three hours will torment me for life. She gasped for breath for three long hours as I held her hand while I thought 'any second'. For three ugly hours. She was frightened to the end :-((